How ArabiaWeather leveraged big data and processing power to stay ahead of the competition

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The story of ArabiaWeather is one referred to in the Middle East
startup community again and again - so often that it's almost
become legend. Founder Mohammed al-Shaker started the weather
prediction service when he was still in high school back in 2006,
and since then the site has since grown into one of the largest
content sites in the region. As of last month, the mobile app
boasted 289,000 active users, 3.1 million unique users visited the
website, and the site was ranked number one in the MENA in the
travel category, and number five in the MENA in the portals
category.

Part of its success, says Chief Product Officer Yousef
Wadi on a call with Wamda, is that ArabiaWeather has leveraged
existing, largely Europe- and US-specific weather algorithms to
create an accurate and nuanced prediction mechanism, as we have covered
previously. This has been a rapidly accelerating process over
the course of the company’s nearly 10-year journey (ArabiaWeather
has been operational for four years, having transitioned from a
Jordan-specific site).

Processed data and supercomputers

As the team gears up for its biggest year yet (which
will include the launch of several new products and services),
Wamda asked Wadi what other technologies the startup has adopted
that have impacted its formula, as well as how the product is
sold.

When the team made the shift from
JordanWeather.jo to a region-oriented service, the way they
collected and processed data had to change due to the sheer amount
of information they were now dealing with. “The amount of data
generated by these models [the weather algorithms as well as data
from airport, public, and their own weather stations around the
region] is dramatic, massive,” Wadi says, “around half
a terabyte
per hour.” With JordanWeather.jo, weather information was collected
and analyzed using a more
local, on-the-ground strategy.

The team began renting processing power
fromsupercomputersin Helsinki,
Slovenia, and more recently, Belarus. The weather stations send raw
data for the computers to put into models (the WRF
modelamong others), and receive back images,
numbers, and weather pattern simulation forecasts that the
meteorological and weather teams then translate into
content.

Stormy weather.

Two for the price of one

Another important technological transition the
team made, according to Wadi, was the adoption ofNode.js, a server
side frameworkthat enables developers to use
JavaScript to code the backend of websites (JavaScript had
previously only been used for frontend development). This allows
frontend and backend programs to communicate more easily with each
other. “Instead of hiring two sets of developers,” Wadi says, “we
could just hire one.”

Utilizing Node.js, Wadi says, the team was able
to get an entirely new product up and running in just two days.
Their speed paid off: ArabiaWeather ended up selling the result,
branded Aviator, which sends notifications specifically tailored to
pilots and the information they need to safely fly (like wind speed
and direction, visibility, etc.) to Royal Jordanian.

The team’s ability to use this technology all at
once is contributing to deals like that with Royal Jordanian, as
well as one with a “global player” in the oil and gas industry. “A
main problem [these companies] face is windspeed and storms at sea,
which threaten their offshore rigs,” says Wadi. “If a company has a
rig out at sea, and wind speeds reach over 70 mph, the thing has to
shut down.” To avoid losing money on closing the rig, as well as
“risking people going out in bad weather,” oil and gas operators
need to know a very specific set of weather data over a specific
time period.

Data – as well as the ability to process and
communicate it – “is giving us an advantage when it comes to B2B,”
Wadi says.

Up next on ArabiaWeather’s technological radar? “We
want to begin using supercomputers right here in the region,” says
the product specialist. “Our offices are here in King Hussein
Business Park, which has the power and internet capabilities to
host such a setup,” he says gleefully.